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This book about Winnie Ruth Judd and the famous trunk murders covers four decades of the most continuously fascinating murder case in America. The authors, young writers of Phoenix, Arizona, where the murders occurred, became interested in the case as it continued to occupy the press into the 1960s and 1970s. — The story began in 1931 with the di... more »scovery of two bodies shipped to Los Angeles and Mrs. Judd's surrender in a funeral parlor there. Released from prison in December, 1971, Winnie now lives on the West Coast, having endured a series of trials, seven escapes from a mental institution and forty years of headline publicity. A vivid personality, she has always claimed public attention and a coterie of sympathizers who believe her innocent or long since rehabilitated.

No such case since Lizzie Borden has had so many varied aspects:

Psychological trauma rising from Winnie's relationship with two murdered lesbians and a sexual "quadrangle."

Courtroom drama-at her first trial, Winnie was sentenced to hang, escaped the noose by a few days and, in a second trial, owing to violent temper tantrums and strange fantasies, she was declared insane.

Winnie's dramatic escapes-committed to the State Hospital, Winnie kept the press active for years until the authorities and public were so distracted and intrigued by her cunning that most people were happy with her final escape in 1963 (for six years).

Coincidence-Winnie was apprehended in 1969, her fingerprints found on a car near a murder site. Police later disassociated her with that crime.

Winnie Rith Judd's story belong in the classic genre of psychological murder, in the tradition of Lizzie Borden, the Black Dahlia and the Boston Strangler.« less